The bitcoin market continues to grow in popularity and has developed at a fast pace during the last 24 months even though governments across the world continue to have reservations about legalizing bitcoins as a digital currency.

There have been a number of Bitcoin providers who have launched operations during the last 24 months and the majority of them have done extremely well. One such company is startup 21 that has preferred to keep its product plans extremely confidential for most of its existence. The company decided to make a portion of its plans public during March 2015 and successfully managed to raise $116 million in funding, making it the biggest bitcoin funded start-up.

startup 21 recently announced that it has an innovative product called the 21’s BitShare chip that will be embedded in a users smartphone and will then be used to ‘mine’ bitcoin in the background. The product and idea might appear a bit complex for individuals who have no idea about bitcoins or technology. The easiest explanation for a non-technical user is that by installing 21’s BitShare chip in their smarthphone they will have the opportunity to earn a continuous stream of digital currency.

Startup 21 has released a number of blog posts on its website to provide insight and helpful information as to how the application would work. One of the blog posts states “Rather than paying a number of different subscription bills, by including the right-sized 21 BitShare with the device one can under many scenarios wholly or partially defray the expense of the cloud service”.

The company confirms that this is a genuine product and cannot be used as a get rich quick application. The bitcoins mined from the embedded chip in users smartphones can be accessed and then used to pay utility bills. startup 21 also stated that this process can also be used to reduce phone bills especially in developing countries.

While the 21 BitShare chip comes across like a wonderful idea, there are a number of roadblocks that the company and the application must overcome. If the embedded chip operates on a consistent basis on a smartphone, it will immediately reduce the battery because the chip required a lot of power to mine bitcoins. The chip will also need internet access to constantly run in the background and thus increase data costs for users. Thus in order to measure the success of the embedded chip, users will have to compare the revenue they derive from bitcoin mining with data consumption and inconvenience caused by battery drainage.

21 startup also announced a couple of changes to their senior leadership team and confirmed that their current CEO Matthew Pauker will replace chairman Balaji Srinivasan who is one of the co-founders. Srinivasan who is also a partner with Andreessen Horowitz will now step into the CEO role. The company has also completed another round of funding but is yet to disclose the final investment amount raised.